


If I ever said I wished my life was a movie, I didn't mean The Hills Have Eyes

by nwhepcat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Drabbles, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 05:08:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: A few drabbles playing around with the idea of Faith and Buffy meeting up with Bobby Singer.





	If I ever said I wished my life was a movie, I didn't mean The Hills Have Eyes

"I've had some crazy slayer dreams in my day, but this ..." Buffy glances over at Faith, worried she's just hinted that she has doubts about Faith's abilities. 

Faith's unfazed. "No shit. 'Find the Singer?' It's like some lame-ass elves and dwarves magical quest bullshit. In South Dakota? If this is some cosmic fuckin' Rickroll—"

"Look, we've gotta help Giles. If there's even a chance—turn there." Buffy points at a sign. **Singer's Salvage Yard**.

"A junkyard?" Faith nods toward the old fart in a grimy baseball cap coming toward them. "And Goober Pyle there is our expert in ancient magics?"

***

Goober Pyle goes off to rummage around for a couple of Cokes. 

"If I ever said I wished my life was like a movie," Faith says, "I didn't mean _The Hills Have Eyes_."

Buffy snorts. "You haven't talked to a vengeance demon lately, have you?"

"Not that I know of."

Goober returns with a Coke in each paw.

"Come the fuck on," Faith says when she sees the caps have been twisted off. "Do we have signs on our foreheads saying ROOFIE ME, I'M STUPID?"

Goober comes up with a silver flask instead. "Then you take your holy water neat?"

***

The old geezer holds up his silver flask. "If you're who you say you are, drinking holy water will have no effect on you. If you're not --"

"Gimme that." Faith snatches the flask from his hand, unscrews the cap.

Buffy grabs her arm. "Faith --"

"The pentagram on the ceiling?" Faith says. "The library that would give Giles major wood? It's holy water, all right." Tipping the flask, she takes a belt, then hands it off to Buffy. 

"You satisfied?" Faith demands. "Or you got some other test you wanna run? See if I weigh as much as a duck, maybe?"

***

"Who sent you here?" Singer growls. Faith can't help thinking he reminds her of someone. A sheriff on some old TV show, she can't remember which.

"Well, that's the thing," Buffy says.

He gets even more scowly. "No sentence I ever wanted to hear begins with the phrase, 'Well, that's the thing.'"

"I had a dream," Faith says. "It said we should find you."

"A dream?" 

She might as well have said _A fortune cookie_ or _A gumball machine horoscope_.

"Yeah," Faith says. "We get prophetic dreams. It didn't say you were gonna waste our time with a buncha bullshit."

***

Singer eyes them. "You girls look about the right age."

Buffy flicks a look toward Faith. "And now we get to the skeevy part of our program."

"What?" He fusses with his grimy ballcap. "Oh fer shit's sake. That's not what I'm askin'. When did they start? The dreams."

"A few nights ago," Faith says. They're cryptic as all hell, so finding you took a while."

"How about in general?"

"About eleven years ago," Faith says. 

"Maybe thirteen for me," Buffy adds.

"So you're not Azazel's kids."

"No, we're Jerry's kids," Faith snaps. "Mind coughing up a little background here?"

***

"Azazel's a long story," Singer says. "Let's get the relevant stuff on the front burner. You're not his, but you get psychic dreams. So what are you?"

"Applicants to the Singer International School for Tact and Diplomacy," Buffy says.

"Tact wastes time," he growls. "Get to the explanation."

"I wouldn't say psychic so much as prophetic," Buffy says.

"Wanna clue me in on the difference?"

"They're potentially useful, once you get past the steaming mountain of bullshit," Faith says. "Kind of like --"

"Faith," Buffy says.

"Again I gotta ask how you two are hooked into prophecy."

"We're slayers," Faith says.

***

"What the hell are slayers?" 

Buffy shoots Faith a look. "You want this one, or should I?"

"I got this." Faith gestures at the precarious book piles. "Guess I don't have to start with the 'Demons are real' speech, but that's my usual starting place. Let's go with, 'There's a long line of warriors against vampires and other dark shit. Chosen one, mystical bloodlines, blah blah.' Buffy and I are both slayers, though there used to be just one in any generation."

"You've been slayers for twelve, thirteen years? They chose teenaged girls?"

"Only way to get in the club."

***

"Lemme get this straight. Someone's sending teenaged girls out to fight vampires and I quote 'dark shit.'"

Buffy says, "We're not teenagers now, Mr. Singer, and --"

"Bobby, goddammit. Mr. Singer's my dad, and he's long dead. So who chose you?"

"It's not a who," Faith says. "It's some mystical bullshit. I woke up one day and I was a slayer. Super strength, fast healing, prophetic dreams, the whole package. Then I got a visit from someone from the Watchers Council."

Bobby scowls at them again. "You're telling me you've got superpowers."

"You want a dog and pony show? It's on."

***

"You want a dog and pony show?" Faith demands. "It's on."

"Can I be the pony?" Buffy asks.

Faith grabs a poker from the hearth. 

"Now hold on," Bobby says. "Someone's gonna get hurt."

Ignoring him, she bends the poker into a U. Bobby's jaw drops. 

"I can also tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue," she says, "but you've gotta buy me a drink first. Holy water doesn't count." Faith passes the poker to Buffy.

"Next time, I get to do the bendy part," Buffy says. "The straightening is anticlimactic." 

She hands Bobby the poker-shaped poker.

***

"You're not a watcher," Buffy says, "but you've got a pretty watchery library."

"The hell is a watcher?" Bobby demands.

"Each slayer has a watcher -- well, historically. Mentor, trainer, voice of reason, book guy."

"Minion of a shadowy organization with its own agenda," Faith adds. "Don't forget that."

"No," Buffy says. "But you're like a watcher without portfolio. How'd you get into this?"

"Hunters get into this life two different ways," Bobby says. "Some are born and raised to it, some have had something bad happen."

Looking into his eyes, Faith doesn't have to ask which it was for him.

***

"I get the whole watcher deep cover as a librarian," Buffy says. "But a junkyard?"

"It's not a junkyard," Bobby growls. "It's salvage." He stumps out the door to meet a customer with a list of needed auto parts.

The word strikes Faith for the first time. Salvage. Salvation.

Not junk. These dented hulks have been saved to get a shot at a second life. Pieces that have merit lifted out of rusting junkers to be fitted into a slot where there's something missing, and out of that melding of parts, a useful whole.

Not so different from Faith herself.

***

“Giles is one of the watchers I mentioned,” Buffy says.

“So which is he? Mentor or mystical corporate minion?”

Faith smirks at corporate minion. “Depends who you ask.” This earns her a glare from Buffy. “Look,” Faith amends, “he’s a good man. I just came along at a time when he was already so close to Buffy he didn’t have much energy to spare.”

“I thought you said each of these slayer girls had a watcher.”

“Got a little careless with my first one, so I had to share.”

Bobby’s direct gaze tells her he sees past her offhand manner.

***

“This story’s branching off in so many damn directions, I don’t know which one I should run down first,” Bobby says.

“Stick with Giles,” Faith tells him. “That one has a happier ending.”

“Giles is ... Giles,” Buffy says. “Trained to be a watcher his whole life. They get the literal bloodlines, while slayers have the mystical. When I first met him, he was the high school librarian. Thus the books.” She glances at Faith. “And yeah, he had his minion moments, but when push came to shove, he proved he was more devoted to my welfare than the corporate agenda.”

***

"Ain't this a kick, B.? Familiar, but totally not."

But Buffy has fallen asleep in the murky light of Bobby's cluttered living room. Bobby teases the ancient text from her hands, and Faith snurches her beer.

"This whole process is improved by beer," Faith tells him. She trades her text for another on the pile. "So do you sleep in that damn hat? I can tell you don't shower in it."

Bobby scowls. "Get readin'."

"What are you hiding under there? Horns, or just a whole lotta bald?"

"I got hair."

"Keep hiding it, and no woman's gonna believe you."

***

“Saw this place on the way out here,” Faith tells Bobby. “Another salvage yard. The guy running it got so pissed off that so much perfectly good shit ended up trashed that he started building stuff from scrap. These crazy birds and armies of bugs and this ginormous space ship thing. You should see it if you get a chance.”

“It made her cry,” Buffy says, curled up on the sofa. 

Shit. Faith had thought she was sleeping.

“I’d never seen her cry.”

“I want to be like that. See the potential inside broken things for something wild and beautiful.”

***

Faith feels heat rise in her cheeks at the nakedness of this statement. What is it about this old fart that makes her share pieces of herself she usually keeps hidden away?

She jumps up. “Who wants another beer?” Without waiting for an answer, she makes her way to the kitchen. She snags three cold bottles from the fridge, wondering at the row of wall phones, each with a label tacked above.

Faith opens her mouth to ask about them when she returns, but Bobby says, “You already see it. Or else you wouldn’t even know it’s there to find.”

***

"Wow," Buffy says. "Down the rabbit hole, huh?" They're lying in twin beds in what's easily the neatest room in the house, a narrow space under the eaves. The rain pounds so hard on the tin roof neither one bothers to whisper—or tries to sleep. 

"What?"

"Y'know, Alice in Wonderland."

"Never could get into that. Friggin' creepy."

"I just meant we've stepped into some kind of bizarro world where watchers are like a cross between Mr. Goodwrench and Yosemite Sam."

Some kind of bizarro world where Buffy and Faith are exchanging sleepover secrets in the dark. "I like him."


End file.
